Lampman signs with Mohawk
Nick Lampman’s post-secondary volleyball career has set up nicely with the Mohawk College Mountaineers.
“I was supposed to practice with Conestoga and Niagara, but I felt that Mohawk was a better fit,” the 5-foot-10 libero said. “The coach and their team was very together and a great group of guys and they have a really good police foundations program there.”
The Grade 12 student at Eden feels the Hamilton college is the perfect spot to pursue his career goal of becoming a military police officer.
The 17-year-old can’t wait to get started at Mohawk.
“I’m looking forward to having fun and hopefully winning some championships,” he said. “And hopefully I can get a good education out of it too.”
Lampman has been no stranger to winning championships at the high school level. He won two Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association championships at Eden as a junior and two more as a senior Flyer. He also added an Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ silver medal in 2017 and a gold medal in 2018. He was starting libero at Eden all four years.
He’s working hard to prepare for his first season of college volleyball.
“I need to work on my leadership,” he said. “As libero, you need to be a leader in the back court and control the back court. You can never have too much leadership in the back court.”
Lampman began playing volleyball at age 11 for Pine Grove Public School. He played three years of travel volleyball with the Niagara Rapids before spending two seasons as a setter with the Mountain Athletic Club. This season, he has returned to play with the Rapids.
“This is closer and I wanted to play with a better team,” he said.
It has turned out to be a good move for Lampman
“We’ve had our ups and downs, but we are coming together pretty good,” he said. “We are in the top 12 right now — we could get higher and I think we will get higher.”
He practises twice a week with the Rapids team and sometimes will practice with the Rapids squad that is a year younger. He has also worked out with the Mohawk team, but that has slowed down as that team approaches its playoffs.
The once-a-week practices at Mohawk have been invaluable for Lampman.
“When I practised with the Mohawk team, I got to know the guys and the coach more and it is preparing me for what is next.”
The experience was an eye-opener for Lampman.
“It’s a lot faster and if you are not in the right spot, you are going to get screwed up or get in the wrong position and get hit.”
In addition to volleyball, Lampman used to play travel baseball in the States, but decided to focus on volleyball last year.
“It was kind of tough to choose between one sport, but I felt in volleyball I had a better chance of going further,” he said. “I didn’t have a chance to go anywhere in baseball because of my size and volleyball felt like the right sport to choose.”
He obviously has made the right choice.
“It’s a good sport and I have always liked it,” he said. “It’s not too fast, it’s not too slow and has a good pace.
“And when you are in the middle at set point, it’s intense and I love that feeling.”
